Tuesday, February 18, 2020



National wants lower wages

Just days after talking about how people feel "squeezed" and promising tax and service cuts as a "solution", National is talking about cancelling a rise in the minimum wage if elected:

National is considering scrapping the Government's planned minimum wage increase if it wins this year's election, the party's finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith says.

The Government has progressively been increasing the minimum wage and promised it would reach $20 an hour by April 2021.

But, speaking to RNZ this morning, Goldsmith said National was considering putting a stop to this.


If they were really worried about people feeling poor, they'd be supporting a higher minimum wage, because increasing the minimum ratchets up wages for everyone else. But it seems that that is precisely what they want to avoid - because higher wages for ordinary kiwis means lower profits for National's big-business backers. So instead, they're promising to keep people in poverty, and cut the services they need to get by, so they can channel more money to their rich donors and cronies.